Wednesday, March 16, 2011

My current campaign uses Holmes Basic as the starting point for its rules. This creates an odd situation with weapon damage and strength:

1 - All weapons do d6 damage.

2 - Str does not modify melee damage.

3 - Except an 18 Str gives +2d4 damage in melee (as per the description for Gauntlets of Ogre Power, which grant the +2d4 and also specifies the wearer gains an 18 Str).

Here's the new rule I'm considering for next session.

Str 12 or less - all melee weapons do d6 damage

Str 13-15 - all melee weapons do d8 damage

Str 16-17 - all melee weapons do d10 damage

Str 18 - all melee weapons do d12 damage

I'm planning on revisiting all the stats for my campaign. Right now I plan on keeping the total number of stats at the canonical six, but I might rename Wisdom and/or Charisma. I previously touched upon the idea of renaming stats in this post, which got a lot of great comments worth re-reading. They'll all stay on a 3-18 scale, though I have been kicking around adding percentiles like in HackMaster and 1st edition Cavaliers. I had the same idea as HackMaster (i.e. all stats get percentiles, slight increases at each new level) back when the original Unearthed Arcana came out, as I'm sure lotsa DMs did. But I never quite got around to implementing it.

"Man, is there anything Jeff CAN'T do when it comes to gaming? This guy is like a critical 20 every roll. Jeff can bite the heads offa five game geeks, including their sorry-ass DM, and spit 'em into a large duffel bag ONE AT A TIME!...that's just the kind of messed up bastard he is! You think yer a gamer, punk? Well..do ya? Jeff will depants your weasel-ass right in front of your grandma."